On Your Mom Thinks I’m Her Final Boss

Boys,

I love your mom — it’s important that is the first thing I say in this post because it is also going to be the last thing I say in this post. That way, I can tell your mom “I literally started and ended it with saying that I love you.” It’s kind of like when you say something nice to someone, then something critical, then something nice — it’s a way to disarm them so they receive the criticism, and they feel good afterward because they are left with something nice. So, remember, I love your mom.

With that said, over the years, she’s convinced herself that I am out to get her.

Now, I would imagine a lot of married men, especially those who have hit the 10 year mark like I have, that they’ve come to accept that just agreeing with their wife is usually the best thing to do for a number of reasons. Those being:

• It’s the path of least resistance
• It doesn’t matter if you’re right; you’re wrong
• It’s not going to change anything
• You can probably play 18 on Saturday if you don’t fight about how much “we” spent on Amazon this month

My brain told me to stop there. Actually, my brain told me to not make a list, but this is to you and maybe she won’t read this? Anyway, sometimes I do feel the need to interject my own opinion on something. Sometimes I think to ask a question about the thing that she stayed up all night last night thinking about. Sometimes, I think that I can send this thought to our group text and that it will be received the way that I intended it.

The reality is, somewhere over the years, your mom has decided that by the transitive “boys are dumb” property, most things I say are done so with the intent to harm, deceive, invalidate, or challenge something that she said. If none of those apply, then whatever I said was dumb because boys are dumb. I have a feeling that this only applies to “boys” that are of similar age and in close relation to the female using the transitive boys are dumb property, but I cannot say for sure. What I do believe is that by the time you two grow up, this will not apply to you — at least from your mom’s perspective.

Here’s an example — this happened to me the other day.

We were going to see a movie for your (Reagan) 7th birthday. The movie was at 4:30 and we were going to go to dinner at Kinsale afterward because we’d be hungry and you wanted to use your free milkshake ticket you got. That morning, your mom told me the plan (best to confirm plans the day of so not to acknowledge any misunderstood details ahead of time) and mentioned we’d probably be out of the theater by 6p.

Just as she said that, my gut called and left a voicemail.

“Hey man. She’s not accounting for the previews. Even if you leave before the credits, you’re probably not going to get out of there until 6:30 and that puts us at Kinsale closer to 7. By the time we order, kids won’t be eating until 7:15 best case scenario. I don’t want to tell her, so just thought I’d let you know and do with that what you will. Also, let’s do lunch sometime.”

Naturally, I didn’t relay the voicemail to her in real time because I’ve been married to long to do something like that. So I did what any man would do and I asked Google AI to confirm how long most previews are for movies. I then added that to the 94 minute runtime of the movie to confirm my suspicions. I should have mentioned we were going with two other families, and I didn’t know if they were all planning to do dinner too or if their husbands had already had the movie-to-food timeline conversation with their wives already.

An innocent thought came to mind. I texted the group. Here is that exact text:

Lets break it down. I led with a well-timed pun on the movie we were going to see to ensure the tone was light. I then follow up with a presentation of the timeline I’d worked out along with more humor to dismantle any potential of ill-will or negativity from my end — obviously this guy is being lighthearted and thoughtful. I also presented an option for the kids to eat before it got too late, and rounded the whole thing out with yet more humor (could be overkill at this point, but if that is the worst thing the group will take away, so be it).

I was relieved when the two responses from the other decision makers in the group seemed to take well to my text. They’d considered my points and seemingly echoed my concerns. “This is going well,” I thought.

I thought wrong.

I was hit with a barrage of four texts from your mom. Because I know better than to put her on blast, I’ll loosely interpret those four texts below.

• Text 1: what are you trying to say?
• Text 2: me and Reagan are going to eat dinner at Kinsale so don’t sabotage my evening you dumb boy
• Text 3: I already told people they can decide if they want to come or not, so quit acting like I didn’t think this through
• Text 4: “I’m going (to dinner) with or without you.”

And there it was. Good intentions turned to an aggressive attack on her character, decision making, and ability to plan. All this on your birthday, Reags, or as your mom likes to call it, her BIRTHday. As is usually the case, I went into defense-mode and explained that I had no malice in my intent, and that I was just trying my best to be helpful.

Me dumb man. Me no think about what me say. Me sorry. Me love you.

Fortunately, I got a “mmmhmmm” which usually means that she’s either too busy to put any more thought into it, or she’s accepted that I was just asking a question. Either way, I was off the hook.

That was a long story, but it goes to show how your mom just thinks of me as the final boss standing between her and peace. And I think a lot of wives think the same about their husbands. I don’t know how or why we men get to this point. If I had to guess, it’s probably a combination of a few things. Namely…

• They have to look at us year after year after year, and while this doesn’t impact men at all, women don’t like it. It’s like, we could sit on the same couch for decades and be happy. Women use phrases like “freshen things up” or “that couch is disgusting and if I have to look at it one more time I’m going to puke.”
• Everything in a woman’s mind is connected to everything else going on in the world. The fact that the shirt she was going to wear is in the washing machine is frustrating, and so is the way that he cooked eggs the last time and he’s over there with his stupid face making me breakfast again. He’s so annoying!
• Social media (probably). I am on the gram too so I get it. But I’m flooded with some cool things like Detroit Lions speculations and crypto news, and some dumb things like food challenges and people hitting jackpots on slot machines. I’m assuming most women follow the same accounts, which include things like reality couples (who usually break up and it’s probably because the dude is an asshole), friends and celebrities on vacations and with rockin’ beach bods, or funny videos about how many men does it take to do whatever simple task… then they’ll look at us and marco polo their group about how annoying we are.
• Not knowing the shared calendar. Or asking about the shared calendar when we should know what’s on the shared calendar. It’s not my strength, admittedly, but where’s the harm in asking what time the thing is tonight when you’re right there?

Look, at the end of the day, I don’t do everything right. But I also don’t do things to irritate your mom on purpose. One of the things that attracted me to your mom was how ambitious she was. She was going to make the kind of life that I wanted to be a part of and I wanted to help her make that life. She talked about growing up on a golf course and being able to run in and out of the clubhouse and get milkshakes and hot dogs and run back outside with her friends. I thought about how perfect that sounded and we’re doing everything we can to give you boys that kind of childhood.

At the end of the day, we both want the same things for our life and for you boys. You’d think that with wanting the same things, we’d be on the same team with most things. To me, we are. To her, not always. But I’ll always do my best to make her smile, maybe even laugh sometimes. And even when I can’t remember what the plan is tomorrow, even when I can’t change that stupid look on my face (it’s just my face), I’ll always try to remind her that I love her and that all I want is for her, and you boys, and even Oakley sometimes, to be happy, healthy, and working toward our shared dreams.

And I will do all these things no matter how she feels about me because one in ten days, in a good month, she actually kind of likes me a little bit. And that’s good because….

I love your mom.

Love,

Dad